Donald Arthur
Donald Arthur (April 29, 1937 - September 21, 2016) was an American-born voice actor, working primarily in Germany, whose bass voice was heard in several Muppet dubs. Most notably, he dubbed Beauregard on Die Muppet Show (and other projects), took over Uncle Deadly (season three onward), and voiced Boober Fraggle on the Fraggle Rock co-production Die Fraggles, as well as other supporting parts or human cameos. Voicing Beauregard (and Uncle Deadly) again in Die Muppets, he was one of only three remaining voice artists to reprise their roles from the original Muppet Show dub; the other two were Christina Hoeltel as Scooter and Michael Rüth as Rowlf. His final dubbing work was on the German dub of the 2015 series The Muppets. Born in New York, Arthur studied opera (performing in the chorus of 1958's The Ballad of Baby Doe with Beverly Sills and recording the bass part of Ali Ben Ali in Mario Lanza's posthumous album of The Desert Song). Moving to Munich in 1960, he soon became involved in the dubbing industry, first looping English dialogue for German films and then re-dubbing English dialogue into German. He did a particularly close sound-alike for Peter Ustinov in such films as One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing, Appointment with Death, and Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen (as well as The Great Muppet Caper). Often cast in roles calling for deep voices or an American accent, he also dubbed James Earl Jones in Fantasia 2000 and Will & Grace, Paul Bartel in Caddyshack 2, Shashi Kapoor in The Deceivers, Isaac Hayes in Robin Hood: Men in Tights, and bit parts in Casablanca. Animation dubbing credits include Igor on Count Duckula, Kent Brockman on The Simpsons, and Chef on South Park, as well as the Jabberwock in Eberhard Storeck's dub of the Alice in Wonderland anime series. Animated feature work included The Lord of the Rings (as Gimli), Pixar's Ratatouille (Gusteau), Heavy Metal, and Hugo the Hippo. For Disney, he was heard in Make Mine Music (as the narrator, Tetti Tatti, and other singing and speaking roles in "Willie the Operatic Whale"), The Small One (the auctioneer), Darkwing Duck (Taurus Bulba), and Hercules (Cyclops). Arthur provided the English-language voices of Falkor in The Neverending Story II and Jean-Paul Canalligator in the direct-to-video entry A Rat's Tale (with Jerry Stiller). He had on-camera roles in the mini-series Wagner (starring Richard Burton) and the TV movie The Saint: Wrong Number. Muppet/Henson dub credits *''The Muppet Show'' (Die Muppet Show): **Season 3 onward: Beauregard and Uncle Deadly **episode 116: Gorgon Heap **episode 202: Zero Mostel *''The Muppet Movie'' (Muppet Movie): Lew Lord *''Die Fraggles'' (Fraggle Rock): Boober Fraggle *''Der Grosse Muppet Krimi'' (The Great Muppet Caper): Beauregard, Lorry Driver *''Die Muppets feiern Weihnacht'' (A Muppet Family Christmas): Boober, Beauregard *''Animal Farm: Old Major *Die Muppets: Uncle Deadly, Beauregard *Muppets Most Wanted: Beauregard, Uncle Deadly *The Muppets'': Uncle Deadly External links *Agency profile - includes German and English demos __NOWYSIWYG__ Category:International Voice Actors